


The Last (Westminster) Waltz

by Britpacker



Category: Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister
Genre: Gen, Goodbyes, Most political careers end in failure, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 13:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22711726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: The fallen PM must take his leave of Downing Street.  Just for once, the Cabinet Secretary seems to be somewhat at a loss for words…
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	The Last (Westminster) Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Trying my hand at a new fandom - a piece of closure for my all-time favourite comedy. Has there ever been a better comic trio than Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds?

The removal wagon was filled, and the flat “above the shop” stood silent. Apart, the departing incumbent couldn’t help but notice, for the cheerful trill of his life’s mate as she made a last check for personal items, singing a jaunty ditty at odds with the pall of funerial gloom he felt lying heavy as the leaden winter skies across his soul.

Failure. The inevitable end of any politician’s career. One day, the Rt Hon. James Hacker, Prime Minister. The next, a has-been.

Better, perhaps, than a never-was. 

“Jim? The car’s outside.”

Squaring his shoulders, the Honourable Member for Birmingham East (he was, at least, a success in his own constituency: unlike Eric, who’d been unceremoniously kicked out of his) cast a final glance around the empty rooms and stepped to the head of the staircase, offering an arm to his wife as he went.

In deference to his dejection Annie did at least try to wipe off her smile. “I won’t miss this ghastly goldfish bowl darling, but I _am_ sorry,” she whispered, letting him steer her down toward the famous black door, firmly closed against the jostling hullabaloo of pressmen eager for the best shot at – _of_ , he reminded himself firmly, he meant _of_ – the fallen emperor. 

Clustered in the lobby, eyes respectfully downcast, the occupants of the Cabinet Office had gathered with the few lingering political personnel to pay their last respects. Only one person among them, Hacker suspected, truly mourned.

Dorothy Wainwright stood straight-backed, not a hair out of place despite the frantic rush involved in clearing her office before the dreaded civil servants could get at it. Immaculate save for the redness around her eyes and the crumpled handkerchief clutched in one quivering hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as he bent to kiss her cheek. “If I hadn’t been so _certain_ …”

“Politicians take the credit: they must be prepared to shoulder the blame too.” That sounded appropriate, Hacker congratulated himself: firm and resolute. Dorothy sniffed wetly against his collar.

And that he should depart Number Ten with snot on his white shirt seemed fitting too, he admitted as he stepped back and she dissolved into quiet tears, helplessly allowing herself to be swallowed by the dark, amorphous mass of neutral public servants she had so ferociously steeled him to fight.

He shook every proffered hand, murmuring the appropriate response to half-heard commiseration and good wish. He hardly noticed the melee thinning out as he reached the door, where like sentries the first officials to welcome him into government, four years ago at the Department of Administrative Affairs, waited to remove him from it.

One, at least, appeared moved by the occasion. “Thank you for everything, Bernard,” Hacker volunteered, gripping the younger man’s hand hard enough to draw a definite wince. “I’m sorry that my successor…”

“It’s quite all right, Prime – I mean sir – I mean....” His former Principal Private Secretary floundered, and when he glanced aside for guidance, Hacker noticed it was, for once, not forthcoming. “It’s the Prime Minister’s prerogative – the incoming Prime Minister’s, I mean – to request any changes he deems appropriate, and I shan’t be – well, I’m sure there’ll be plenty to keep me occupied at the MoD.”

“You’re off to defend the realm, Bernard?” Annie had always, Hacker considered, regarded Bernard Woolley more as a pet than a public servant: the one and only thing about Downing Street she might actually miss. When he blushed, she patted him kindly on the cheek. “I’m very glad you’re being promoted, by the way. Jim says it’s quite a step up for you: didn’t you, darling?”

Bernard, unsurprisingly, did what Bernard did best when taken unawares. He blathered. 

“Oh, ah, yes, it’s a great promotion – I mean, in terms of grade obviously, because one might see the MoD as a step down from Number Ten of course, but an Undersecretary does significantly outrank a Principal Private Secretary, even if he does directly serve the Prime Minister, and…”

“I’m sure you’ll do marvellously: won’t he, darling?”

“The MoD are lucky to be getting you, Bernard.” The younger man blushed harder, so Hacker gathered he must sound entirely sincere. Which he was, of course. Bernard had been loyal, supportive even, from the first day in office.

Most of the time. 

At least, he thought he had.

“Well, it’s Sir Humphrey’s doing really, Prime – er, well, that is, it’s a Civil Service appointment, and I’m really very grateful…”

Taking pity on the agitated official Hacker moved on, lifting his glassy blue eyes to the deep brown ones of his occasional nemesis and sometime benefactor: his nominal chief ally over four tumultuous years. “Well, thank you for that, Humphrey,” he said, pulled back in time as he offered his hand to that first encounter in the ministerial office at the DAA, when he had been so much more naïve and less aware than he was today. “I’d hate to think Bernard would suffer for my failure…”

“As you say, politicians must take both the credit and the blame, while the creaking old bureaucratic machine rolls silently on.” The Head of the Home Civil Service, already with one eye on the incoming government, first shook Jim’s hand then bowed elegantly over Annie’s proffered one, lifting it delicately to his lips. 

Jim couldn’t be sure which of the Hackers was more startled by the unexpected gallantry. While he goggled, Annie blushed and simpered, popping up onto her toes to press a quick peck to the Cabinet Secretary’s cheek. “Goodbye, Sir Humphrey; and thank you,” she whispered, and his eyes widened, the only sign he would ever give of the surprise he must feel at _those_ words from _that_ source. “I hope my successor will be able to keep the cook!”

“I understand the new lady of the house has no _professional commitments_ to match yours, dear lady.”

“So, the cook goes back to the Cabinet Mess full time, does she?” Hacker joshed. Sir Humphrey arched an eyebrow in subtle acceptance of the dig.

“I believe so, but the precedent has been set. I’m sure many of your successors will be grateful for your _particular_ place in the history books.”

For the first time since the exit poll’s release, James Hacker’s laugh was genuine. “Well, I achieved something in two years after all,” he teased, gripping the other man’s hand again. “And if I couldn’t get a significant policy change past you with a majority in the thirties, I don’t fancy my successor’s chances with two!”

“Oh, now you’re being much too modest! You changed a great deal in a short space of time.”

“Did I?” Standing a fraction straighter, Hacker considered for a moment. “Well, I suppose I did get a cook! And – well, we’ve had our ups and downs over the years – only natural I suppose - but I do think we’ve made a jolly good team together Humphrey, you and I.”

“It’s certainly been a memorable partnership,” Sir Humphrey agreed serenely, and if the answer was, as always, open to multiple interpretations, Jim decided he could be allowed to choose the kindest one.

“And now you’ll have a new Prime Minister to break – break _in_ ,” he corrected himself hastily. Bernard, he noticed, was biting his lip. _The poor chap really is taking my loss hard!_

“Alas yes, but I shall endeavour to serve the incoming authority as impartially as I have its predecessors,” Sir Humphrey assured him, only the glimmer of a twinkle in his eye hinting at the mirth behind his sombre tone. Forcing back a snigger, Hacker assumed his gravest expression.

“And I dare say we’ll still run into each other now and then, eh?"

“Oh, indeed! Your career in public service is far from over,” Sir Humphrey conceded helpfully. “Unless of course you intend to resign from the Commons, but that would be a great loss to the House…”

Was that an invitation? A suggestion? With Humphrey Appleby, Jim admitted, one could never be sure, but he grabbed it anyway. “Oh, no, no, no, of course not! One has a duty to one’s constituents, and even when the time comes… one must do one’s bit to serve, eh Humphrey?”

The door was opening. From the corner of his eye Hacker could see flashes of light from a hundred long-lens cameras, his ears already assaulted by the hoarse rumble of media anticipation. The Cabinet Secretary straightened his broad shoulders, offering his hand again for the very last time.

“Indeed, one must…”

The habitual self-assurance dissolved and the suave mandarin, the master of Whitehall’s vast governmental machine, actually shuffled his feet. Squeezing the other man’s fingers, James Hacker was visited by one of his rare flashes of completely spontaneous empathy. 

“I think, after all these years, you’ve probably earned the right to use my given name, don’t you?” he suggested gently.

With a duck of his silvery head and a wry smile, Sir Humphrey Appleby broke the habit ingrained by a lifetime in Her Majesty’s Civil Service. “Yes… Jim,” he said firmly.

The door to Number Ten opened wide. To a volley of flashes and shouted questions, James Hacker MP turned up the collar of his overcoat and ducked after his wife into the ultimate symbol of political disappointment.

A black hackney cab with a ticking meter.

He glanced through the back window in time to see the familiar door snap decisively shut. “I _am_ sorry, darling,” Annie murmured, worming her hand into his. “But Humphrey’s right, there are still a lot of things you can do.”

“More, probably, without him to block my every move.” 

The joke emerged gruffly, and with her free hand Annie dabbed at over-bright brown eyes. “You’ll miss him,” she said shrewdly. 

“In an odd way, I think I will.” A moment of genuinely good-humoured concord from the distant days of the DAA replayed in his mind, as clear as if Hacker were living it again. “Like a terrorist and his hostage,” he breathed, jolted back to the present by Annie’s puzzled look. “I suppose we did get rather fond of each other, in a way.”

Echoing Bernard, she asked the obvious question. “Which one was the terrorist?”

“Do you know darling; I don’t think we ever quite worked that out.” Draping an arm around his wife’s slim shoulders, the former Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury turned his back on Downing Street for the last time. “But it’s good to know, I suppose, that anything I _did_ achieve won’t be undone by my successor. At least, not while Sir Humphrey Appleby’s still running the country!”

**Author's Note:**

> So, that’s my first foray into this particular fandom. I’m working on a longer fic to explain how Jim came to be removed (and why Dorothy Wainwright apologises for her part in it) which, if it ever does what I want it to do, may be posted eventually. Hope you enjoyed this little scene anyway!


End file.
